Iridium - Alaska, USA

Large iridium specimens. any input from experts will really be appeciated

Unfortunately slag, not iridium.

Pure iridium probably doesn't exist. The specimen shown is as Alfredo says, not iridium,

"Iridium" specimens are likely to be iridian osmium or osmian iridium.

In either case, these minerals are more silvery than silver and extremely hard.

The "Osmiroid" fountain pen was constructed with tiny placer nuggets of osmium alloys from Tasmania.

Somehow the tiny nuggests were brazed or welded onto the ends of the pen nibs.

A practical mineral mineral specimen which has been distributed througout the World and used by millions of non-mineral collectros..

I wonder what the BIC "dyamite" ball point pen roller was made of. Tungsten carbide ?

Bart

A large iridium specimen would feel extremely heavy in the hand. Ah yes! SLAG the IMPOSTER. It used to fool me, not anymore.

Ah yes, Rudy,
Will we ever be rid of that dastardly SLAG the IMPOSTER?
Mindat to the rescue.

Definitely slag, but I'm wondering why the original poster thought they were iridium? Were they bought as "iridium"? If so, get your money back.

Originally this request was linked to a photo of iridium in the database, I suspect he thought it looked similar (it did superficially).

Team MinDat - I don't know what that is BUT before we jump to the conclusion that it is slag how about some more information.

1. Location
2. size
3. hardness test
4 it needs a soak in Iron Out
5. than some more pictures. Some close ups of different areas of the piece.

End of the day it may turn out to be slag but I hate to go there with just two pictures and no more information.

Danny Jones

Could you imagine how expensive a specimen of iridium this size would be?

It's slag, no doubt.